Thursday, November 17, 2011

Tag line:"down this twisted road, please watch over my soul and lift me up so gently so as not to touch the ground"

Trivia: Nearly all of the actors in the film were non-professionals that had been hand-picked by David Gordon Green through random circumstances

It opens with a slow-motion montage of children frolicking on a summer's day. As a piano plays softly in the background, the narrator of the story, a young girl named Nasia (Candace Evanofski), introduces us to the world we’re about to explore. In this initial scene, director David Gordon Green establishes a soft, melancholy tone that will resonate throughout the film, transforming George Washington from your run-of-the-mill adolescent drama into a truly unique cinematic experience.

One of the local kids, a boy named George (Donald Holden), is considered dim-witted by many who live in his peaceful southern town . Yet despite his mental deficiencies, George believes he’s better than most, and is convinced he’s destined for greatness. It’s this attitude that first impresses Nasia, who has just broken off a romance with George's friend, Buddy (Curtis Cotton III) in order to pursue a relationship with George. Unfortunately for Nasia, George is too busy searching for his place in the world to take any notice of her.

George Washington follows its characters and their exploits with an observant eye. One day, as George, Buddy, and their two friends, Vernon (Damian Jewan Lee) and Sonya (Rachael Handy), are roughhousing in the bathroom of an abandoned building, a tragedy occurs (one I refuse to spoil for you here). Now, in almost any other drama, this event would influence every action and reaction, every single situation from that point on. In short, it would become the focal point of the entire picture. However, George Washington is not your typical film; as time marches on, even something as awful as what occurred in that bathroom becomes little more than a side story in the lives of its characters. For director Green, no situation is more important than the individuals who inhabit them, and he never once takes the focus off of his characters to follow narrative plot lines, regardless of how horrific the event might be.

While I found the movie very intriguing (especially when it came down to the 'tragedy' and how the characters handled it), I can understand your reaction as well. It's not a movie to watch when you're feeling sleepy!